Strong Enough
by Taigne
Summary: Set a little after the Freiza saga, Kuririn's friend begs him to let his sister stay with him after she's kicked out of home by her father, but the happy facade she puts up can't hold forever.


  
Strong Enough.  
  
The doorbell went mental as Chez finished tightening the nuts on the front wheel of his Harley. It was now blue, rather than the mucky brown it had been for the last few weeks, since Kuririn had persuaded him to take a short cut on the way back from the Metropolis comics con they'd stayed at over the weekend.  
Looking up at the sound, Chez paused, that was odd, he wasn't expecting company and for once he didn't have a 'girl of the week'. The ringing didn't cease, so he climbed the stairs from his 'bat-cave' garage and hurried to the front door.   
On opening it he was barrelled backwards by his apparently distraught little sister Chataigne.   
"He's thrown me out! Che', he's cut off my college fund and all my stuff's in a box and he, he, he said I couldn't come back and, and…" she trailed off as Chez pushed her gently to arms length and, kicking the door shut, looked at her sceptically.  
"And all of this was entirely unprovoked?" his tone was bordering on sarcasm. Taigne put on her most pathetic expression, looking up at him coyly with puppy-dog eyes, making her four foot nine and nineteen years look even younger than usual. Ignoring his sister's wiles was easy after twelve years of living with her and Chez merely sat down in response to this display, gesturing for Taigne to do the same.  
The witch draped herself over the wooden chair and balanced on two legs with her foot against the table, rocking backward and forward precariously.  
"So what's the deal with the theatrics?" Chez wondered if he really wanted to know the answer, Taigne wasn't exactly … well, normal was a nice way of putting it.  
"Well ... dad found me messing around with someone I ... shouldn't have?" Her insanely hopeful expression masked the real fear in her eyes from her despairing brother, who was worrying about the rest of the sordid detail, which inevitably accompanied this story. He plunged on, unaware of her deception, much to her relief.  
"Spill."  
"Um … dad found me … screwing around with someone in his office." She smirked, *keep playing, girl, he is caught, hook line and sinker* Chez took it to be a usual state of affairs for his sister to find this funny.  
"Who?" he asked. There was a pause as Taigne couldn't help but savour the pre-bombshell air before dropping "His secretary!"  
"Oh my .. Taigne! The one he's been dating for the last three months?!!" Chez didn't talk with his father since his mother passed away, but the witch kept him abreast of the latest developments in Kio's love life. His sister shrugged.  
"I didn't realise at the time!"  
"So you were high as well?! Oh, this just gets better!" Chez buried a hand in his hair and closed his eyes, remembering her declaration on entering.  
"He's really chucked you out, and closed your account." Taigne had restraint enough to look abashed at this, she didn't want him to send her away because of false misadventures.  
"Yeah …um …my stuff's outside."  
"Oh no! You're not staying here!" she opened her mouth to protest, but Chez's glare declared the subject closed. She pouted and set the chair on four legs, looking more serious than he'd seen her for years.   
"But I have no where else to go! My job's tied to college, so I've lost that and there's no way I can afford a flat in the Metropolis, which means I can't get a job there!" she sighed in resignation, as did Chez in sympathy, but he stood his ground.  
"I'm sorry, but there's no room! Tai and his girlfriend live here as well, I can't just go taking in new lodgers left and right, especially non-paying ones."  
"Oh, come on Che', I'll provide my own futon and everything!"  
"And pay for your own water and electric I suppose?"  
"…Yesss, when I get a job, please? If I'm not in here tonight I'll be out on the lawn…" she trailed off piteously. Chez tried to shake it off, but fighting his conscience with his reason failed him and he caved in muttering, "I'll see what I can do".  
  
"Aaaah," Kuririn sighed contentedly as he stretched out to his full 'pushing five feet' on the porch in front of Kame house. Roshi and the turtle had gone to Thailand with Miss D for a month, so he had the island to himself. He'd been working out since eight this morning and was relaxing without the usual bickering of the other two or the perky midi-file music of Roshi's work-out videos to distract him. He shifted slightly to flatten out a lump in his towel when from inside the little house came,  
"Ring, ring, ring! Ring, ring, ring! Phone call! Phone call!" Grumbling to himself about whoever was calling, and the turtle's obsession with Pokemon, he trudged inside and found the phone under a pizza box.  
"Moshi, moshi?"  
"Moshi, moshi, Kuri-chan, you're not busy are you?"  
"Chez, no, why?"  
"Well, you said that Master Roshi was away, so .. you've got some spare room over there, right?"  
"Yeah …" Kuririn answered cautiously.  
"Thing is, my sister, she's got a problem and … she needs a place to stay, and I'd offer my place but there's already Tai and Ria in the bedroom and me in the spare, there's just no space. I guess I'm asking if you could put her up for a little while? Just until she finds a place…"  
"…Er … I gu' … um, is she the one with the canary suit?" The little man quailed at the all too clear memory of Chez's last birthday party.  
"Er … yeah…?"  
"Chez … she's insane, you know that, right?"  
"Yeah, but please K, she'll be … not bad, I promise, you can kick her out, first sign of trouble."  
"Why do I feel like I'm gonna regret this?"  
"You are the best, man! Thank you so much, I'll bring her right over, thanks bye!" and he hung up.  
"…." Said Kuririn. What did he just agree to? Why was he such a pushover? 'Right over'? That didn't sound good. Looking around, he saw how tidy the place was.  
"Aaaaaaargh!" he began to frantically toss discarded cartons and cans in the vague direction of the bin. Why was it that the prospect of women visiting always petrified him? Wait a minute, what was he thinking, this was Chez's sister he was panicking about, Chez's scary younger sister. She was at uni, she couldn't be more than nineteen, nearly ten years his junior. Not that you could tell to look at him, he still had to give ID to get into bars and even the cinema. Mind, you the cinema thing was mostly due to Yamcha's idea of hilarity, he had a retarded sense of humour, not dissimilar to the rest of his personality.  
He stopped rearranging the mess by throwing it randomly around the room and frowned over the scene. Then he decided to actually put some of the fast food cartons and boxes in the trash. Half an hour later, the floor was once again visible. Looking up, he sensed an approaching ki and sat down to wait. And jumped up like he was in trouble with Chi-chi when he realised he was still wearing only his boxers! He dashed to his bedroom and was hopping into a crumpled pair of trousers when there was a knock at the door and the sounds of sibling bickering.  
"Door's open," he called, remembering just in time to pull up his zip before rounding the corner to greet his guests.  
Taigne was looking with perturbation at a picture of Goku and four-year-old Gohan on the cabinet, it appeared she hadn't realised he'd come in. Chez got up from where he'd been perched on the sofa arm and steered her to face Kuririn. She looked slightly bemused for a minute before realisation dawned.  
"Oh, hi!" she bowed.  
The ex-monk bowed back, taking in her typically mismatched student clothes, short black hair and contrasting pink bangs and an expression hinting at goofy, but not quite masking the calculation in her eyes.  
"Thanks for putting me up like this, I'll be good," she flashed Chez a look of 'happy now?' before grinning disarmingly at Kuririn.  
"Th … That's ok," he scratched the back of his head nervously, desperately pushing lusty, wrong feelings to the back of his mind.  
"Um, let me get those, I'll show you to your room," he grabbed her two suitcases and Taigne shouldered her rucksack and followed him through to Roshi's room.  
"Um, please ignore the posters," Kuririn blushed as Taigne raised an eyebrow at the hentai adorning the walls of the venerable old master's abode. Dumping her bag, Taigne asked.  
"So this Roshi guy won't mind me borrowing his room, none of these are girlfriends of his who're gonna beat me up if they find me here or anything?"  
"Ackhhgkkh …!" Kuririn choked at the prospect of any of the nubile women on the walls being at all interested in the disgusting old pervert. Taigne grinned.  
"I'm just playing with ya, this Roshi guy's a big pervert right?" The little man grinned back.   
"Yeah, he's way old, see, he took an immortality potion and er … that probably sounds really weird, huh?" Taigne considered that for a second.  
"Nah, immortality potions, I can cope with that, I've seen weirder."  
Kuririn blinked "You have?"  
"Yup, got some very dodgy coke this one time, seriously crazy shit ensued."  
"…oh." She smiled disarmingly again.   
"Don't worry, I don't do drugs anymore," her expression went blank as she said this, but Kuririn didn't ask further, whatever her reasons they were no doubt personal. She shook her head and looked up brightly.  
"Actually, I dabble in the Wiccan, so general weirdness I'm not averse to."  
"Witch stuff you mean?"  
"Yeah … I won't do it in the house if you don't like."  
"I don't like?" The ex-monk was getting rather confused by the whole situation.  
"Err, I don't mind…" he managed, wishing that the conversation wasn't serving to make the teenager all more appealingly attractive. Emphasis on the 'teenager'. He gulped, blinking furiously, wondering what exactly he had let himself in for. An awkward silence descended until Chez wandered in waving three cans of Dr Pepper.  
"Thirsty?" he handed them out.  
"Sure, but I can raid my own fridge when I want a drink," Kuririn grinned relieved at the interruption.   
"And when you're hungry," Chez whisked Mars bars from behind his back.  
"Thanks."  
"I must say, I'm disappointed that you had these, there I was thinking you'd have all healthy food with all your martial-arting and that."  
"Oh, come on," Kuririn protested, "Mars bars are totally healthy!"  
"You do martial arts?" Taigne looked up from where she had perched on the edge of the bed. "So that's how you carried my bags more than two metres without going all red and collapsing on the floor." Chez coughed, embarrassed.  
"More than just a pretty face, I like that in an older man," Taigne commented in a sultry tone. Kuririn was glad he didn't have a nose to spray Dr Pepper out of; the deep crimson shade he had gone was embarrassing enough.  
"Chataigne," warned Chez.  
"Joke," the little witch held up her hands in protest. "So, what d'ya do for fun around here?"  
  
It had been a three weeks since Taigne had moved in, and Kuririn didn't know what to think. He loved her quirks and idiosyncrasies, her throaty laugh and her general company, none of which helped defeat his growing attraction to her. His voice which had at first been firm and clear, telling him to leave well alone, was getting weaker and weaker, and he found himself staying in his room, or training harder and longer so that he could avoid her and the desire she provoked.   
Another dilemma was her mood swings. She would be bouncy and bubbling one minute and grouchy and evil-tempered the next. They were becoming more frequent as well, but he wasn't sure whether to confront her about it, or let her deal on her own, which she seemed to be doing at the moment, taking herself to her room and Limp Bizkit or Blink 182 until she 'got her happy back'. And despite her claim to be joking in Chez's company, she'd dropped various hints since he'd gone that she was indeed interested. All in all, the ex-monk was confused.  
"Why did you switch off my CD?!" she was in one of those moods again. Kuririn looked up from his book.  
"I'm sorry, I thought you'd forgotten it, you've been gone ten minutes."  
"I went to the bathroom!" she whined. He shrugged.  
"Well, put it back on if you want." She frowned, she didn't want him to agree, she wanted to have reasons to yell and stomp off.  
"No, you obviously don't want to listen to it since you turned it off!"  
"Well, I'm not really listening to anything, I'm reading, I don't really mind."  
Taigne sighed in frustration.  
"Yes you do, you wouldn't have turned it off otherwise!" Kuririn put his book down.  
"Are you trying to get me to argue with you?"  
"Would you be mad if I was?"  
"Not really, just confused," *as always with you* her thought.  
"Look, just yell or something ok?" she was sounding desperate now.  
"No!" he searched her face for a clue as to what she wanted.  
"Come on! Just, come on, please…" she looked thoroughly miserable.  
"Taigne, I don't get it, what's wrong?" Kuririn got up and put a hand on her shoulder, concerned. She pushed him away.  
"No! Don't be like that, don't be nice, just yell!"  
"Why? Taigne, you're obviously upset, tell me what's wrong, I want to help, not be mad at you."  
" But, I'll cry, I …" and she was now, big tears rolling down her face and dripping off her nose. He put an arm around her and sat her down next to him on the sofa, stroking her hair.  
"Come on, Tan-chan, tell me what's got you so upset like this."  
"I can't," she sniffed, trying to stop crying.  
"Why not?"  
"Because you'll tell Chez and he'll hate me, and you'll probably hate me too, and everything will be bad," she pouted and snuggled closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder.   
"I won't hate you, I promise."  
"You'll tell Chez though!"  
"Not unless it's dangerous not to, I swear," he turned to look her straight in the eye. She frowned back, considering.  
"Define dangerous."  
"Does it put anyone's life in danger?"  
"No!"  
"Then I won't tell Chez," he promised. She fiddled with a ring on her thumb as she debated with herself whether to tell this man, who she'd only known a few weeks, what she had been unable to share with her brother. Part of her said no, but the larger half, the getting desperate half begged to release her secret. What was the worst thing that could happen, he could throw her out like her father had, but would that really matter? If she didn't tell anyone, she'd be all alone in the end anyway. Better to get it over with while there was some chance of time to reconcile before she couldn't pretend things were ok anymore. Gathering her courage, she admitted in a small voice  
"I'm pregnant, it's due in four months."  
"What?!" of all the things Kuririn had been expecting, dreading, this was not one of them. "How the fuck did that happen?! What the hell were you thinking, you're only nineteen years old!" he shouted in shock and disbelief. Taigne jumped to her feet, pointing a trembling finger at him.  
"I knew this would happen! You don't understand, you're just like my father!" she screamed, feeling the tears prick her eyes again. She ran from him, to her room, locking the door behind her, and flung herself onto her bed, burying her face in her pillow as she began to sob. Kuririn put his head in his hands as he realised what he'd just done and hurried to her door.  
"Chataigne, I am so sorry, I, I didn't mean that, I was surprised, I, look, please come out, I can help, I can … do something. You don't want Chez to know, that's fine, I won't tell him, I, look I, that was a terrible thing for me to say, and you're right, I don't know anything about it, but, please, come out and tell me, I can help…" he paused, waiting for an answer, but all he could hear was Taigne crying. He sat down in the hallway and sighed as his mind scurried to fit this revelation around his Taigne knowledge.  
"I'm guessing that your dad was really mad at you because he found out, huh? That's pretty harsh tough, throwing you out. I can understand you not wanting to tell anyone since then, and I just went and did exactly the same thing. Oh Kami, I was a real jerk, and I'm really sorry, I didn't mean that at all. I just need time to think, it's a really big thing, y'know, well, duh, of course you do, am I rambling, I guess I am, I'll stop now. Um, please come out soon, I'll just sit out here while you, decide stuff," he rested his head on his hand and waited. Nearly an hour passed and Taigne's sob became sniffs, which eventually stopped altogether. There was no other sound from inside the room though, and Kuririn got up to stretch as he felt his legs going dead from sitting in the same position for so long. Turning to face the wooden door, he came to a decision.  
"Taigne? I hope you're not asleep in there, cos I've got to tell you something important and, I'm not sure I can say it if it's not right here and now while I have the courage. I think I love you, no, that's dumb, I know I do, I haven't stopped thinking about you since you got here and I don't know that I can keep pretending I don't anymore. You might think that it's gross and I'm way too old and it's freaky, and if you want to leave, then that's fine, and if you want me to never mention it again, then that's fine too, but I hope you don't leave, not just for me but for the baby's sake. I meant what I said before, I'll help you, somehow, at least I'll try, please Taigne, you don't have to come out, just let me know what you think, talk to me or something."  
He was met by silence. Deflated, he sat down again, facing the door, with his back against the wall opposite. Then, from inside the room came the sound of a drawer opening, and footsteps. He held his breath, hopeful, but the handle did not turn. A whirring sound of a CD player began and he sighed, she was going to lose herself in music again, to try and forget all this. Surely she could see that it wouldn't work forever, that she would eventually have this baby and no amount of loud music would make it go away. But the folk guitar introduction, which weaved its way through the door to him, was not any of the usual rock albums she usually used to find her happy. And as the verse started up, Kuririn realised that this song was for him, not her.  
  
'God, I feel like hell tonight,  
tears of rage I cannot fight,  
I'd be the last to help you understand.  
Are you strong enough to be my man?  
  
Nothing's true and nothing's right  
So let me be alone tonight.  
You can't change the way I am.  
Are you strong enough to be my man?  
  
Lie to me,   
I promise I'll believe.  
Lie to me,  
But please don't leave.  
  
I have a face I cannot show,  
I make the rules up as I go.  
It's try and love me if you can.  
Are you man enough to be my man?  
  
When I've shown you that I just don't care,   
when I'm throwing punches in the air,  
when I'm broken down and cannot stand,  
will you be strong enough to be my man?  
  
Lie to me,   
I promise I'll believe.  
Lie to me,  
But please don't leave.'  
  
As the last delicately strummed chord faded, Kuririn stood with his head to the door. "For you, Chataigne, I will find the strength," he whispered. "I'll be here for as long as you need me, I don't need to lie about that." There was a quiet sigh from inside the room, but nothing more, so he sat down once more, and waited.  



End file.
